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Witnessing the drone of Tarek Atoui’s hybrid sculpture performance Internal Organs At the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, I noticed a family of four — young parents and two young children — sitting silently on floor cushions in the Rotunda. The younger child, no older than two or three years old, was unusually calm and focused in his mother’s lap. He watched, fascinated and mesmerized, as musicians moved from stage to stage, adjusting metal tubes, scattered balls and bells into thin vibrating membranes and reaching into various compartments of modular instruments.
Tarek Atoui’s “Organ Within” at the Guggenheim Museum, New York
Source: M Wei
Atoy’s work considers sound to be more than just an auditory experience, exploring it as a tactile and visual experience. As I slowly made my way up the sloping floors of the circular building, noticing the acoustic changes, I was struck by another way to experience the piece as a mindful walking sound meditation.
in How music worksDavid Byrne talks about the intimate relationship between music and architecture. Musical composition and experience are shaped by the space in which it is performed. Musicians compose for the space they perform in. The site-specific performance within the spiral rotunda created a unique, meditative sound experience.
Sound has a deep and ancient connection to meditation and healing. Sound healing has ancient roots in cultures around the world. Australian Aboriginal people have used the didgeridoo as an instrument in sound therapy for over 40,000 years, and it has also been used in spiritual ceremonies using Tibetan and Himalayan singing bowls. Sound meditation is a type of meditation that focuses the mind. Recently gaining in popularity are so-called “sound baths,” which use Tibetan singing bowls, quartz bowls, and bells to guide the listener. These practices emphasize the theme of how the experience of sound manifests not only through hearing, but also through tactile physical vibrations and frequencies.
Science is still catching up on understanding how sound heals, but current research is promising: A review of 400 published scientific papers on the medicinal benefits of music found strong evidence that music has mental and physical health benefits, including improving mood and reducing stress. In fact, rhythm, in particular, can relieve physical pain (more so than melody).
One study Evidence-Based Integrative Medicine Journal One hour of sound meditation has been found to reduce tension, anger, fatigue, anxiety and depression, and increase mental well-being. Sound meditations used Tibetan singing bowls, crystal singing bowls, gongs, tingshas (small cymbals), dorjis (bells), didgeridoos and other small bells. Singing bowls were the primary instrument used in 95% of sessions. Both people who had never tried sound meditation before and those who had done it before experienced a significant reduction in tension and anxiety after the meditation.
Various theories exist that attempt to explain why experiencing sound can lead to deep relaxation and relief of physical pain.
One theory is that sound acts throughout the body through a vibratory tactile effect. Sound may stimulate tactile fibers that influence pain perception. One study of fibromyalgia patients found that 10 low-frequency sound stimulation treatments (twice a week for five weeks) improved sleep, reduced pain, and enabled nearly three-quarters of participants to reduce their use of painkillers.
Sound vibration therapy has been shown to be effective for arthritis, menstrual cramps, post-operative pain, and pain after knee replacement. Sound therapy has also been shown to improve mobility, reduce muscle pain and stiffness, increase blood circulation, and lower blood pressure.
Another theory about the benefits of sound is based on the concept of “binaural beats” or “brain entrainment,” which hypothesises that listening to certain frequencies changes brainwaves in a synchronous way.
Electrical activity in the brain is expressed in the form of brainwaves, or rhythmic, repetitive frequencies, and these rhythms can be measured using an instrument called an electroencephalograph (EEG).
There are four categories of brainwaves, ranging from the frequencies that occur when you are most active (beta waves) to the frequencies that occur when you are least active (delta waves).Different states of alertness and consciousness in different parts of the brain produce different brainwave frequencies.
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- Beta waves are the fastest type of brainwaves and occur when your brain is highly active and mentally engaged.
- Alpha waves occur when the brain is in a non-awakened state, such as when a person is resting after work or meditating.
- Theta brainwaves are associated with daydreaming and the rapid eye movement (REM) dreaming stage of sleep. Theta brainwaves occur during states like driving on the highway or on long journeys, which are often when ideas and creativity start to flow.
- Delta brain waves are the slowest and are associated with deep, dreamless sleep.
The premise of binaural beats is that the brain synchronizes its brainwave frequencies to the difference in Hertz of the sound played in each ear, which leads to a state of deep relaxation associated with beta or meditative, trance-like theta waves, depending on the frequency.
While researchers are still trying to unravel the mechanisms of sound’s healing effects, sound in the form of vibration therapy and meditation offers potential therapeutic benefits with little to minimal side effects. Atoy’s work shows us the joy of being in the active presence of sound, in all its senses: sight, touch and hearing.
Marlynn Wei, MD, PLLC © Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.
